Telecoms regulator Ofcom is warning consumers to check they aren’t owed money when they switch to a new communications provider. It estimates at least £10 million has been unclaimed in the past two years; that's around £5 for every customers who's switched to a different landline, mobile, broadband or pay TV provider.

Ofcom says mobile and fixed-line communications providers need to do more to publicise services for disabled customers. It's just published the results of mystery shopping research that looked at telephone-based and online help available from BT, Orange, O2, TalkTalk, T-Mobile, Three, Virgin Media and Vodafone.

Samsung Electronics has announced quarterly revenue of 37.89 trillion Korean won (£20.41 billion), up 17% year-on-year. Consolidated operating profit for the quarter was a record 5.01 trillion won, up 88% on the same quarter in 2009.

In recent months there’s been a lot of talk about smart metering and the wider subject of machine-to-machine communications. With well over 100% penetration of mobile phones in the UK, the promise of machines exchanging information over the mobile network offers operators a new opportunity for growth.

To explain more about the technology and the potential, we invited Ross Catley to join us for this week’s edition of The Fonecast. Ross has worked in the utility & telecommunications industries and is now a consultant who advises on smart metering.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

BT has formed a partnership with Arqiva and Detica to build a dedicated radio network designed for 'smart metering' in the UK. Existing GSM and GPRS technology has been used for most of the projects so far.

The UK Government has previously said it wants all homes to have smart meters by 2020, with Ofgem expected to publish more details this month.